


armed

by Bright_Elen



Series: war footing [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bad Dirty Talk, Coitus Interruptus, Dirty Talk, Feelings Realization, Jealousy, M/M, POV K-2SO, Pining, Robot Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Substitution, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, chopper fucks, you read the tags right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bright_Elen/pseuds/Bright_Elen
Summary: Cassian is being more confusing than usual. K-2 researches the problem. Chopper lends a hand.None of it actually fixes the fact that K-2 is responding very strangely.
Relationships: C1-10P | Chopper/K-2SO, Cassian Andor/K-2SO, minor Cassian Andor/Din Djarin
Series: war footing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918522
Comments: 16
Kudos: 44





	armed

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the folks on the Beskarsexual server whose wide-ranging thirst served as inspiration. <3

Cassian was hiding something. Or rather, given that Cassian was  _ always  _ hiding something, the contradictions in his behavior suggested to K-2SO that he was hiding something new _. _ Something K-2's current schema of data and predictive models didn't include.

For example:

  1. Cassian had indicated in his request for extraction that the mission had failed.
  2. Failed missions resulted in Cassian's despondency in 100% of known instances.
  3. Cassian had been pleased when K-2 found him in the market square.



Most of the time, Cassian displayed neutral affect during extractions. During the others, including several instances when K-2 had rescued Cassian from certain death, he was displeased. There had been two extractions Cassian expressed gratitude, but those were after mission successes. K-2 had no explanation for Cassian being happy about it now.

And then, Cassian's mood soured once he was back on the ship. Which brought K-2 to the facts that:

  1. Cassian had conceded the problem with his previous orders.
  2. Up to that point, Cassian had only ever conceded the problems in his own previous orders when severely ill, drunk, drugged, or in acute emotional distress. 
  3. Cassian was not severely ill, drunk, or drugged, and was not showing familiar signs of acute emotional distress.
  4. The way he evaded K-2’s touch might be a new symptom of emotional distress, but 
  5. He was also fourteen percent _more_ relaxed than he had been immediately before the mission. 



According to all of K-2's predictive models, it didn't make sense.

K-2 waited, very patiently for him, until they were both strapped into their seats and priming the engines before he asked for more information.

“What happened? Did the informant miss the rendezvous?” 

Cassian’s face went blank. “No.”

That particular variety of Cassian's emotional suppression meant the informant had tried to betray Cassian. Since Cassian hadn't mentioned a danger to the rebellion, most likely he'd shot the informant. Cassian hated doing that.

“Are you emotionally distressed?”

Cassian huffed. “What does that matter?”

“I have eliminated all other possible explanations for your admission that you were wrong.”

He stiffened. “No more than usual.”

“But no less?”

Cassian cut the air with a gesture, a snarl on his face. “Why are you suddenly so interested?”

K-2 met his gaze levelly. “I’m trying to determine why your behavior is aberrant. At this point the most likely conclusion is that the mission is responsible for your distress, but something else is responsible for your lowered stress levels.”

An expression of mingled fear, guilt, and...regret?... flashed over Cassian’s face before he turned away. When he spoke, his voice was cold, flat. “You conclude correctly.”

The satisfaction of a correct prediction went almost unnoticed under K-2’s burning curiosity. 

Things that reliably relaxed Cassian were:

  1. Alcohol
  2. Certain classes of recreational drugs
  3. Intense exercise
  4. Becoming so absorbed in mission reports and other deskwork that he forgot about his own existence



The first two only applied while Cassian was still intoxicated. Positive effects of a good workout lasted longer, sometimes up to a full day, so that was a possibility. He never achieved a flow state on-mission.

"Did you perform vigorous exercise?"

Cassian barked out a harsh laugh. "I suppose I did, yes."

The answer should have resolved K-2's quandary, but the way Cassian had delivered it made him think that he was still missing something.

It also made very clear that Cassian wasn't going to give K-2 anything like a straightforward answer any time soon, so, grumbling, K-2 dropped it.

* * *

Three days after that, K-2 noticed Cassian's pulse rate and pupil dilation increase as they were on their way to Command. There were no previously known factors that could have contributed to these changes, and so K-2 recorded as much data as possible, hoping to find enough similar instances that he could begin analysis.

He had no idea if it was related to Cassian's post-mission behavior, but gathering data on Cassian had proved to be worthwhile in 94% of all instances. 

* * *

Six weeks and four missions later, K-2 landed the U-wing at the biggest spaceport on Pendarr 3. Before leaving the ship, Cassian stripped to change into the Imperial uniform he needed for infiltration. K-2 was monitoring signal chatter and comms from Flight Control, but he had more than enough processing power to catalog Cassian's physical condition simultaneously.

The bruises from the previous two missions were nearly completely faded, and Cassian had, thanks to K-2's reminders, gained a little weight. All of that was satisfactory.

But a new set of bruises on Cassian's hips raised alerts in K-2's HUD. They were recent (>72 hours), all the same rough shape and size (round, two cm in diameter ±0.3 cm), and in two tight clusters, one on each side. The pattern remained mysterious until K-2's forensics algorithms mapped virtual hands over them, and from their positioning, the full silhouette of a humanoid directly behind Cassian.

If an enemy had been close enough to grab him like that, there would have likely been other wounds, too. Conclusion: Cassian had allowed someone to get that close. And the most likely explanation for that was— 

"Have you engaged in sexual activity in the last three days?"

Cassian stumbled, then yanked the Imperial uniform trousers up. "If I have, it's none of your business."

So, yes. 

Cassian finished with his belt, but his bruises were still highlighted on K-2's HUD. K-2 stepped close enough that he could have traced his fingers over the injuries, and would have, if Cassian hadn't flinched away. K-2 gestured instead. "Your partner damaged you." 

Cassian huffed and reached for his jacket. "They're just bruises, Kay. I'm fine." 

Physiologically speaking, he was right. Superficial bruising wasn't a medical problem and Cassian was fine.

But K-2's processes called up data he didn't have much occasion to use; data about intimate partner violence, and the extensive emotional damage it could cause, even between casual partners. Cassian's emotional health was precarious at the best of times, and K-2 would not abide him sustaining more unnecessarily.

"Intimate partner violence is not fine."

Cassian jerked up at this, surprise, anger, and guilt all flashing across his face in expressions too subtle for most organics to read. He took a deep breath. "It's still none of your business, but it was consensual."

"Oh." K-2SO processed. His data on human sexual behavior was minimal. It certainly didn't include the fact that, apparently, pain could be a part of sexuality. "I need more data."

Cassian grimaced at K-2 as he was putting on the officer's cap. "You're not getting any more of mine."

"Even if you don't tell me anything else, I can still extrapolate from your physical state and behavior," K-2 retorted. "But I meant that I'm going to do research."

"Don't," Cassian snapped. 

Though he was glad Cassian hadn't tried to make it an order, K-2 didn't understand why he was being so prickly about the subject, and he hated not understanding something. 

"Don't worry,  _ Captain _ , I won't trouble you any further," K-2 said, and returned to the pilot's seat.

While Cassian was busy infiltrating a mid-level government building, K-2 kept his comm open and performed minor maintenance tasks on himself. He also took advantage of the spaceport's lax holonet security and pirated access. 

There was, it turned out, rather a lot of seemingly nonsexual things that humans enjoyed sexually, which K-2 really should have expected from such an irrational species. Cassian was hardly alone in his enjoyment of mild violence. It was, in fact, quite popular, especially related to grabbing, biting, scratching, pinning someone down, light blows, and restraints. There were a number of sources explaining it to other humans and to other organic species, though many of said sources disagreed with each other. Taken as an aggregate, it seemed that, just as with so many other things, the reason one individual enjoyed such activities could be entirely different from the reasons of another.

K-2 was 89% sure that Cassian was in it primarily for the endorphins and the distraction from his emotional state. Self-loathing probably had a minor role as well. It was possible that emotional catharsis was involved, but with someone as bottled up as Cassian, K-2 didn't find it very likely. 

There was absolutely no chance that it had to do with partner bonding.

It did surprise K-2 that Cassian allowed someone to bruise him outside of a mission; the spy was capable of defending himself even unarmed, yes, but K-2 would never have predicted that Cassian would willingly put himself in a situation that might force him to. K-2 hadn't thought that Cassian was one of the humans who did stupid things in pursuit of sex.

He'd been mistaken. And that...disappointed K-2, more than he would have expected. Bitterly, even. Yes, he'd often tried to get Cassian to seek out or at least accept personal gratification of various kinds, because it was an actual requirement for human health; and he found Cassian's acceptance of pain and deprivation frustrating for the opposite reason. 

But he'd never thought about the fact that he  _ liked  _ that Cassian couldn't be compromised by his impulses. Now that that had changed, it felt like losing a good algorithm to corruption.

* * *

Once he'd learned about rough sex, K-2 had the missing piece to make sense of Cassian's arousal response to people in armor. It became impossible not to notice it. 

Every time, it ground through K-2's circuits. It was beginning to be a problem, especially when he began to seriously consider deleting his knowledge of Cassian's sex life.

It shouldn't have bothered K-2 to the extent that it did. It made sense to be disappointed that Cassian fell prey to that particular organic foible. It made sense to be concerned by Cassian's unnecessary risk-taking.

What didn't make sense was K-2 spending so many computing cycles wondering why. He already had an explanation: Cassian was human, and humans did stupid, irrational, risky things. But, despite a total lack of evidence, something deep in K-2's processes kept insisting that there had to be another reason.

The next time they were on Yavin, K-2 had reached a point of desperation. He sent a message, then went to an out-of-the-way maintenance room. 

Chopper, thankfully, arrived only a few minutes after. 

«Hey Ballistics,» Chopper said. «What do you want? Bootleg mod?»

"Hello, Chopper." K-2 locked the door. "No. I need data. Have you ever engaged in sexual activity?" 

Chopper's dome whirled around so fast his upper arms flew outwards. «Congratulations. No one's  _ ever  _ asked me that before!»

K-2 looked down and patiently waited 1.9 seconds. "Well? Have you?"

Chopper let out a burst of staticky laughter. «Yeah, why?»

K-2 looked away. "There is a great deal I do not understand about organic behavior. Information about a sexual encounter could be illuminating, and another droid has a higher chance of being able to communicate that in a way that makes sense." 

Chopper snorted. «Organics are a hot mess. Whatever you learn about droid sex won't necessarily apply to them.»

"A small chance of success is better than none." 

«Fair.» Chopper said, then gave a shrug. «What the hell, I'm in. You wanna do it here?»

K-2 straightened up. "Excuse me?"

«Having sex is faster, gives more comprehensive data, and is a lot more fun than talking about it,» he said, and then rolled back so he could scan K-2 flirtatiously. «You definitely have it where it counts. All those petaflops.»

K-2 considered. He hadn't gone out looking to have a sexual encounter himself, but Chopper had a point.

«C'mon, Legs. I know what I'm doing. I'll show you a good time and you can ream me with that big fat bandwidth of yours.»

K-2 wasn't sure if Chopper intended that to be arousing or humorous. He decided to ignore it.

"How do you want to interface?"

«Depends on what you're comfortable with. We can do more if I jack into your primary scomp, but that  _ is  _ a bit much for your first time and we can do plenty with the spike in your arm.» Chopper gestured to the floor. «Either way, you're too tall standing up.»

K-2 folded himself to sit on the floor. The rational response would be to use his dataspike.

But in a fit of...something, K-2 rejected that. If Cassian got to be irrational about sex, K-2 didn't see why he couldn't, too. He was being less irrational, really, since he trusted Chopper based on years of evidence. Additionally, a more intense experience might be better correlated with the kind of sex that left bruises. 

K-2 turned his back to Chopper and opened his skull casing. "Do I need to make any systems adjustments?"

«Oh fuck that's hot.» Chopper rolled up behind K-2, well within range of his data arm, though he didn't interface yet. «You should probably disable limb control, just in case you're a flailer, and put a ceiling on your vocabulator volume. Don't want the squishies to come running.»

K-2 did as suggested. "Done." 

Chopper came even closer, but didn't do anything.

K-2 shifted impatiently. "Is there something wrong?"

«No. Just taking my time. Been a while since I had a nubile young thing spreading their ports for me.»

"I'm beginning to see why organics can't stand you." 

«You love me,» Chopper replied cheerfully. «Or if you don't now, you will in a minute.»

K-2 rolled his optics. Before he could say anything, Chopper plugged his data arm into K-2's scomp.

[ACCESS REQUESTED]

K-2 tidied up his processes and granted Chopper access.

«Okay, sexy, I've got a code package that will blow your circuits. It lets me directly stimulate your reward matrix. Enough of that will overload your system in a good way. That okay?»

K-2 wasn't sure what to expect. His reward matrix had originally been tuned exclusively to completing objectives for the Empire; after the reprogram, he'd found it responded instead to strategic analysis and combat. Over the years, his learning algorithms had rewritten it enough to give him humor, and pleasure in friendship, and even simple things like enjoying the recursive shapes of certain plant life. 

But none of that had ever struck him as being sexual. He had his doubts that his reward matrix was capable of such feelings.

On the other hand, astromechs certainly hadn't been programmed for it either, and what Chopper described definitely  _ sounded  _ like sex. "Acceptable." 

[SETUP: GOOD_TIME.EXE]

K-2 scanned it, found it clean, installed it, and restarted.

«Welcome back,» Chopper said. «Ready?» 

"Yes."

[RUN: GOOD_TIME.EXE]

Chopper sent a gentle pulse through their connection, and he'd been right: K-2 felt the electricity flow through his circuits in an entirely normal way, but the software made sure a generalized swell of enjoyment filled K-2's processors. 

"Oh," he said aloud. "That's very pleasant." 

Chopper laughed. «Oh baby, I'm just getting started.»

He sent another pulse through K-2, a bit stronger this time. 

K-2 rocked with it. "More."

«Pushy,» Chopper teased. «Maybe I won't let you have it unless you ask nicely.»

"You mentioned me reaming you," K-2 pointed out. "Shouldn't you want me to be done with my own climax faster?"

Cackling, Chopper rotated K-2's scomp to widen the data aperture. «Well, when you put it that way,» he said, and began to send out pulse after pulse that only seemed to grow in intensity. 

A sound that was something like a gasp and something like a yell came garbled from K-2's vocabulator. His fans activated to pull the sudden heat from his processing core.

That was all acceptable. What Chopper was doing felt wonderful, bringing K-2 to intensities of pleasure he hadn't thought possible for a droid. He rode the waves of sensation while concepts like intoxication, ignition, and transcendance flashed through his circuits without much purpose. That was acceptable, too. It felt too good for him to prioritize things like efficiency or achieving objectives.

Then Chopper stopped. K-2 felt as though he'd been suddenly pulled from an oil bath.

"Why did you stop?"

«You know how it works now,» Chopper answered cheerfully. «Now you do me. Once you get the hang of it, I'll put us in a loop. You're gonna want to give and get at the same time, trust me.»

Annoyed, K-2 nonetheless focused his attention on the astromech. Chopper showed him which frequencies to use, and then K-2 was sending exploratory pulses into Chopper's mainframe. 

«Like that, but more powerfully,» Chopper said.

K-2 obliged, establishing a pattern similar to the one Chopper had used on him. 

«Yeah,» Chopper encouraged, Binary warbling with his lack of control. «Like  _ that _ .»

K-2 had to admit that Chopper's responses increased his interest in the proceedings, even beyond the simple need to determine his effectiveness. 

"This is also enjoyable," K-2 said. Was it the satisfaction of reducing Chopper's self-control? 

«Like I said,» Chopper began.

K-2 sent him another pleasure-pulse, the strongest one yet, and Chopper shook on his struts. 

«Fuck,» he said once the tremor had passed. «I was fucking right. You didn't even have to juggle processes for that, did you.»

It hadn't even occurred to K-2 that such a thing might have been necessary, but once Chopper pointed it out, he realized that a droid with less than several entire processors devoted to high-speed strategic analysis would have had to allocate their resources carefully to stimulate a partner. 

K-2 had always taken pride in his skills, but this was the first time his specs alone made him feel powerful. "So that's what you meant by 'big, fat bandwidth.'" He pushed energy through Chopper again, as strong as the previous instance.

Chopper moaned. «I fucking love your bandwidth, give me more, I'll take everything, ream my matrix.»

K-2 increased the intensity of the next pulses. Chopper's dome and struts rattled, though he never lost the connection with K-2's scomp, and let out a string of staticky, humming noises. 

«Okay, fuck, fuck, hang on,» Chopper said after a while. K-2 dialed it back. «Okay, yeah. For this next bit, we set up a loop. Get both of us off.» 

K-2 liked the sound of that. 

[RUN: CUM.EXE]

The string of commands linked the output of Kay's reward matrix with the channels he was using to stimulate Chopper. Presumably, Chopper had been likewise connected. 

Chopper sent a gentle pulse through their connection. The pleasure tingled through K-2, and then Chopper, and then back through K-2. With every loop, it gained slightly in intensity.

«Your hardware locked down?» 

K-2 double-checked. "Yes." 

«Then fuck me  _ hard. _ »

K-2 added a pulse to the circuit, one much stronger than the first. It added stimulation time to the circuit, too, so it felt even more intense than the strong pulse alone. Chopper was moaning, and K-2 realized that not only were his own fans going full-bore, but his vocabulator had activated as well. 

It was too much, but still not enough. K-2 added a third pulse, and shook with the pleasure coursing through both him and Chopper. 

He added a fourth, and his reward matrix overtook all his other processes, all his hardware, and it was a very good thing he'd disabled his limbs, because he lost control of his motor commands and convulsed as all of the servos in his spinal, abdominal and cervical assemblies activated at once. 

It was a few moments before he realized he was rebooting. 

"Thank you," K-2 said once his speech subroutines were online. "That was an enjoyable experience." 

«Any time,» Chopper said, sounding happily fragged. «Seriously, if you're feeling even a little sexy, I'm there.»

"Noted," K-2 said, closed his skull assembly, and got up. 

Chopper unlocked the door and waved as he left. 

K-2 scanned the room for anything amiss, found no traces of his liaison, and also left. 

On his way back to the droid bay, he considered. 

Sex had been pleasurable, yes. To a great extent. But would he risk personal safety for it? No.

Although, he reflected, that wasn't exactly what Cassian's behavior denoted. With Cassian, personal safety was a low priority. At best, it was just a tool for the Rebellion, Cassian's true priority.

So, put another way: would K-2 risk something that would help him achieve his primary directive?

Would he risk something that would help keep Cassian safe? 

He knew, without having to run any simulations, that he wouldn't. 

He was no closer to understanding Cassian than he had been before.

* * *

Another month, another mission. Cassian was gathering intel on Nal Koska over a period of weeks, using the Aach alias. K-2 was staying in the safe house, keeping Cassian on comm and watching through his button camera. He would remotely slice systems Cassian needed access to, act as an emergency researcher to protect the alias, and was keeping a background process monitoring the local signal traffic. He would have rather been out with Cassian, but in Hutt space an Imperial droid bodyguard would attract the wrong kind of attention. 

The mission had thus far been uneventful. This was fortunate for Cassian's safety, and unfortunate for K-2's boredom. It wasn't so bad; Cassian returned to the safe house every day, where K-2 could perform maintenance on him while complaining. Cassian didn't seem to mind that part, either. If K-2 had had more to do while he was out, it would have even been nice.

One evening, twenty-eight minutes before Cassian was scheduled to return to the safe house, he commed.

"I'm following up a lead. I'll check back in two hours." 

K-2 sighed. Two more hours to kill. "Acknowledged." 

However, only nineteen minutes later, K-2 intercepted a message from the planetary governor's office requesting a consultation from the reigning Hutts' security force. The governor was one of the targets of the mission, and it would be relatively easy to insert Aach into the consultancy. 

K-2 pinged Cassian. 

Five minutes later, he still hadn't responded. He went silent often enough that K-2 wasn't worried, but if they didn't move fast enough, a real Imperial would accept the request. It wasn't exactly urgent, but K-2 judged it better to find Cassian in person than let the opportunity slip by, and he welcomed the excuse to get out for a while.

K-2 secured the safe house as he left. Cassian's transponder was holding steady in one location, and it was relatively easy to map a route to it that avoided Imperial checkpoints and cartel-only areas. The signal led K-2 to a run-down hotel that was mostly a venue for gambling, sex work, and substance abuse. 

K-2 found an unguarded back entrance, let himself in, and followed Cassian's signal up two flights of stairs. In the corridor, he paused outside the door, extended his dataspike, and jacked into the wall.

The hotel's system was laughably easy to slice, and soon K could use the cameras in every room, not just Cassian's. They were infrared only, probably as some kind of compromise for privacy reasons. K-2 could work with that. 

In Cassian's room K-2 saw two heat signatures: Cassian's silhouette, bright and sharp above the line of his belt (shirtless), and a larger human whose body heat was visible only in muted streaks (fully armored). Whoever they were, they had Cassian pinned face-first against the wall, one gloved hand clutching his bound wrists overhead, the other a dark silhouette against Cassian's chest. As K-2 recovered from his surprise, the armored person shifted and pushed a thigh between Cassian's. K-2 watched as Cassian's spine arched and he pushed back into the stranger. 

Through the door, K-2 heard his moan. 

A dozen processes began one after the other: loss, hurt, betrayal, anger, contempt. Witnessing Cassian achieving sexual gratification threw him into turmoil. 

The cool hand slid down Cassian's chest, curled into claws to scrape his stomach, right as the stranger ground his hips against Cassian's. Cassian threw back his head against the stranger's shoulder.

K-2's emotions reached a discordant crescendo, and that's when he finally recognized why he was so affected.

It was jealousy. He watched the stranger stimulate Cassian, and projections of doing it himself took over most of his processors. 

What little rationality he retained insisted that K-2 should leave Cassian to his consensual sexual encounter, for various reasons: waiting out the remaining ninety minutes Cassian had metered out wouldn't decrease their chances of successfully infiltrating the Hutt consultation by more than ten percent; the encounter would reduce Cassian's stress; and interrupting would surely upset Cassian.

Cassian rolled his hips again, his arms sliding down the wall. The stranger took hold of the binders and dragged them back up.

Those binders were more dangerous than a simple sexual encounter. For Cassian, not by much; there was still a 91.7% certainty Cassian could defend himself while wearing them. However, K-2 had put a stop to threats with lower than 8.3% probability before, and with Cassian's approval. There was precedent. 

The door was locked, of course, but K-2 sliced that easily. Cassian had added a lock of his own, but K-2 knew how to counter that, too, and within seconds he was ducking inside the room.

"Kay?! What are you— Get out of here!" Cassian hissed. Blood rushed to his face, and K-2 felt vindictive satisfaction at his shame. 

The stranger — a Mandalorian bounty hunter, from the armor — said nothing. After 0.4 seconds of shock, they released Cassian and reached for their blaster pistol.

That wasn't a problem. Many of the modifications K-2 had made to his chassis had been to change the standard configuration of essential components such that they were less vulnerable to attack. There was only a 14% chance the bounty hunter could incapacitate K-2 before he or Cassian incapacitated them. 

To get the Mandalorian away from Cassian, K-2 found those odds perfectly acceptable.


End file.
